Reporter's Notebook: Behind the Scenes of a Fair-Trade AI Data Story

I envisioned an old Cadillac with massive Texas longhorns adorning the hood meandering along a dusty road. This road was in Egypt, and Stringfield was behind the wheel, sweat glistening on his brow as he hauled a load of freshly-baked sesame seed bagels. No, I hadn't been experimenting with some designer hallucinogen. But my conversation with him, as happens with particularly captivating sources, conjured evocative concepts and imagery, the kind of stuff that begs to be illustrated in word pictures. Thing is, although his latest enterprise encompassed many of the issues I aimed to address in my most recent feature story in MIT Technology Review -- such as fair labor in the AI industry, data ethics and the future of work -- his background as a former Halliburton executive who became a bagel-making entrepreneur during his time in Cairo as an HR consultant with the oil giant never made it into the story.